Tag Archives for outbreak

The deadly Ebola outbreak in West Africa may finally be over. While the Ebola outbreak was only in US news for a brief period, it has continued to ravage affected countries until recently. Sierra Leone and Liberia have been declared ebola free, and with the last known ebola patient in recovery, Guinea may soon also be on that list.

A 3-week-old girl in Guinea believed to be last victim of Ebola has recovered, potentially signaling the end of an unprecedented two-year epidemic in West Africa that claimed more than 11,000 lives.

By global health standards, 42 days must pass without another case of Ebola for Guinea to be declared free of the disease. The incubation period for Ebola is 21 days and out of an abundance of caution, twice that period of time must pass before the WHO declares the disease is defeated in Guinea.

A surgeon who contracted Ebola while working in Sierra Leone died early on Monday of the disease at a Nebraska hospital, medical officials said, the second death from the virus out of 10 known cases treated in the United States.

‘the doctor’ was put on dialysis within hours of his arrival and required intubation and mechanical ventilation within 12 hours. He was given plasma from an Ebola survivor and the drug ZMapp provided by Mapp Biopharmaceutical on Saturday, said Dr. Chris Kratochvil, associate vice chancellor for clinical research at the University of Nebraska Medical Center.

My recovery from Ebola speaks to the effectiveness of the protocols in place for health staff returning from west Africa at the time of my infection. I am a living example of how those protocols work, and of how early detection and isolation is critical to both surviving Ebola and ensuring that it is not transmitted to others.

While my case has garnered international attention, it is important to remember that my infection represents but a fraction of the more than 13,000 reported cases to date in west Africa – the center of the outbreak, where families are being torn apart and communities destroyed.

Please join me in turning our attention back to west Africa, and ensuring that medical volunteers and other aid workers do not face stigma and threats upon their return home. Volunteers need to be supported to help fight this outbreak at its source.

CDC has also confirmed that this second health care worker was on a plane from Cleveland to Dallas the day before coming down with a fever. I think the CDC is doing a lot of good things in fighting ebola, and has adjusted to new crises and cases in the US. And I realize that non-symptomatic infections are unlikely to spread… But I have to question why a health care worker who cared for an ebola patient was on a plane after a nurse caring for the same patient contracted the virus???? The CDC itself predicted that more Dallas health workers would likely be infected after possible lapses in protocols… so why were they not quarantined? or at least told not to fly???

Obviously I am not the only person who thinks this is ridiculous… come on CDC, I’m trying to root for you.

There is no one country that can do it alone… we are going to need multiple countries coming in and stepping to the plate. Organizations, NGO’s, so it’s not going to be one person or one group or one country thats going to be doing it. And that’s one concern we have. Because as the epidemic itself, in the speed of its expansion, outstrips the speed and quantity of the resources you put in, you’re always playing catch up ball. The only way to turn this around is to actually catch up. Right now, its all catch up ball.

Whenever you are behind trying to catch up, you can never say we’re doing enough. I mean no one is doing enough. We’re doing a lot and i think if we get the global community involved, that that’s going to be something that is compounding what you are doing, and is what you really need to do.

The number of people known to have died in the worst Ebola outbreak on record has risen to 4,033 out of 8,399 cases in seven countries by the end of Oct 8, the World Health Organization said on Friday.

The death toll includes 2,316 in Liberia, 930 in Sierra Leone, 778 in Guinea, eight in Nigeria and 1 in the United States. The data include one case each in Spain and Senegal but no deaths. A separate Ebola outbreak in Democratic Republic of Congo has killed 43 people out of 71 cases.